Printing

All faculty, staff and students have access to high-speed, multi-function print, copy and scan devices distributed throughout the Ross facilities. Some of these devices located in the faculty and department office areas also have network fax capability.

This page explains the technology behind the service. Instructions for setting up and configuring printing can be found in the side-bar to the right.

Printing that Follows You: An Introduction

The Virtual Print Queue

Ross public printers use a technology called "Follow You" printing. Instead of having to guess which printer might be available at any given time when you need to print something, you can instead print to a single, generic "printer" and then walk up to any of the printers at Ross, swipe your MCard to identify yourself, and then print your document there. This way, you never print to a physical printer that might currently have a line of people waiting to print, or might be out of paper, etc.

In other words, you print to a virtual printer that "follows you." Your print job will be stored for several hours while you complete your work. When you are ready to print, walk up to any of the Konica printers at Ross, swipe your MCard to let the device know who you are, and select the jobs you want to print (all or only a few). The underlying printer management system then locates your print job(s) from the virtual queue, moves them to the printer at which you are standing, and releases them for printing immediately.

Secure and Confidential Printing

A benefit of "Follow You" printing is that it provides very secure and confidential printing options. With traditional public and departmental printers, jobs are submitted to a specific printer and printed near immediately, leaving the pages waiting to be picked up on the tray for anyone to read. "Follow You" printing holds the job until you swipe your University MCard (or type your UM login credentials on the keypad) at the device to identify that the job belongs to you. Only after this secure authentication is the job released for printing.

Do's and Don'ts

Printers are a community resource, so please treat them as such and be courteous to others who use them, and be mindful of the business school's commitment to sustainability by reducing your paper use as much as possible.

Use double-sided printing (the default) as much as possible

Do not print documents you know you won't use, or which can just as easily be used online; try to use Cloud storage services instead

If you print a job, remove it from the tray when you are finished; don't leave unwanted copies for others to throw away.

Split up large or complex jobs into smaller sections to allow others equal access to the printers... in other words, please don't print four copies of a 500-page job at one time

Make sure you log out when you are done; this is important for the security of your documents and for the next person's convenience

Faculty/Staff Local Desktop and Department Printers

"Follow You" printing is available throughout the Ross complex. Taking advantage of these devices reduces the number and diverse type of personal and department printers. As you consider printing options in your area, please consider adopting "Follow You" printing and help reduce the overall cost of printing within Ross. You will also help improve our overall "green computing" and reduce our environmental footprint. "Follow You" offers the best in print quality, printing options, economical printing and security.

How much more cost effective is "Follow You" printing compared to a local laser or inkjet printer in your office? Pretty significant. Your cost to print a typical sheet of paper with 10%, 30% and 60% coverage comes to 6-10 cents, 14-30 cents and 30-60 cents, respectively. Higher coverage can exceed one dollar per page! This does not include the cost of the paper or any depreciation on the cost of the original equipment.

Printer Allocations and Costs

How Balances Work

Ross students are provided with a printing allocation every August 1 to cover the entire academic year. Non-Ross students are given a smaller allocation. Charges apply to printing and copying. Scanning documents is not charged against your allocation to encourage more "green" use of resources.

Students are given $120 for printing once per year. Unused balances do not roll over from year to year. Although displayed as currency, the $120 has no real cash value and is really just a means to allocate usage since printing in color "costs" more than black and white. Each page of black and white printing or copying will deduct $0.06 from your balance, and each page of color will deduct $0.40.

This means that the student allocation of $120 will translate into 2,000 pages of b/w printing for the entire year, or 300 pages if one prints exclusively in color. But since you're likely to print a mix of black and white and color, keeping track is easier if you think about it in terms of a "dollar" amount. The $120 is a rate of exchange within the print management system, only covers Ross printing, and is not a real currency. You are only charged for documents when they actually are released (printed) from the printer.

This "2,000 b/w page" allocation was decided after a two-year study to determine student-printing needs to cover academics. It is not meant to cover the needs of clubs or any outside activities. The study showed that 92% of student printing was covered with an allocation of 1,600 b/w pages. The allocation was increased to 2,000 b/w pages in order to cover the occasional printer jam, toner imperfection, misprint or accidental print. Please print carefully.

Checking Your Printing Balance

Students may check their printing balance using the link in the side-bar, located on the upper right of this page.

Faculty and staff are not given an actual printing allocation, but printing activity is tracked and monitored to make sure that printing resources are used responsibly for academic or business purposes only.

Other Methods of Printing Offered by U-M

ITS Sites

Students of the U-M community also receive a printing allocation each semester through the University's ITS office to cover black and white printing services in other campus computing sites. The pages printed to ITS printers in these locations are deducted from the ITS page allocation. This is entirely separate from your Ross allocation and uses entirely different printers (not found at Ross). Information on ITS printing services can be found on ITS Sites web page.

M-Print

M-Print is another means of printing offered by U-M, separate from Ross. Like ITS Sites, M-Print is independent from the FollowYou service offered at Ross, and no Ross printer is equipped to use this service.